APERTURE

Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

First published in 1986, Nan Goldin's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a visual diary chronicling the struggles for intimacy and understanding among the friends and lovers whom Goldin describes as her "tribe." These photographs described a lifestyle that was visceral, charged and seething with a raw appetite for living, and the book soon became the swan song for an era that reached its peak in the early 1980s. Twenty-five years later, Goldin's lush color photography and candid style still demand that the viewer encounter their profound intensity head-on. As she writes: "Real memory, which these pictures trigger, is an invocation of the color, smell, sound and physical presence, the density and flavor of life." Through an accurate and detailed record of Goldin's life, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency records a personal odyssey as well as a more universal understanding of the different languages men and women speak. The book's influence on photography and other aesthetic realms has continued to grow, making it a classic of contemporary photography. This anniversary edition features all-new image separations produced using state-of-the-art technologies and specially prepared reproduction files, which offer a lush, immersive experience of this touchstone monograph.

Featured image is reproduced from Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/11/2015

When Nan Goldin'sBallad of Sexual Dependency came out in 1986, the world recognized a new kind of photography that was at once diaristic, confessional, graphic, abject, celebratory and tribal. The photographs described a lifestyle that was "visceral, charged and seething with a raw appetite for living," and the book is now not only a classic of the liberated pre-AIDS era, but one of the most important of the twentieth century. Published by Aperture, it is included in the National Gallery of Art's current show, From the Library: Photobooks After Frank, and it is part of our own Essential Photography Library. Featured image is "Cookie with Max in the hammock, Provincetown, Mass, 1977." continue to blog

First published in 1986, Nan Goldin's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a visual diary chronicling the struggles for intimacy and understanding among the friends and lovers whom Goldin describes as her "tribe." These photographs described a lifestyle that was visceral, charged and seething with a raw appetite for living, and the book soon became the swan song for an era that reached its peak in the early 1980s. Twenty-five years later, Goldin's lush color photography and candid style still demand that the viewer encounter their profound intensity head-on. As she writes: "Real memory, which these pictures trigger, is an invocation of the color, smell, sound and physical presence, the density and flavor of life." Through an accurate and detailed record of Goldin's life, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency records a personal odyssey as well as a more universal understanding of the different languages men and women speak. The book's influence on photography and other aesthetic realms has continued to grow, making it a classic of contemporary photography. This anniversary edition features all-new image separations produced using state-of-the-art technologies and specially prepared reproduction files, which offer a lush, immersive experience of this touchstone monograph.